In current wireless communication standards for WiFi communication promulgated by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Carrier Sensing Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) is utilized to ensure the available wireless resources of a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) are made available to mobile stations (STAs) utilizing the WLAN in an efficient and uniform manner. According to CSMA/CA, every STA that wishes to send data over the available resources first tunes to a common communication channel before transmitting on the channel to determine if any other devices are currently utilizing the channel for uplink transmission. During this channel sensing process, an STA concludes that the channel is being utilized by a different STA when it detects a transmission having received signal strength level greater than a Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) threshold (CCAT) level.
Presently, a common CCAT is defined for each Access Point (AP) in a WLAN, which is utilized by each STA when performing CSMA/CA on the common communication channel associated with an AP. In certain scenarios (e.g., where a relatively small number of STAs are within the communication footprint of an AP), the common CCAT may be set at a level that is overly conservative (low) and therefore limits the performance of the system. Accordingly, dynamic sensitivity control (DSC) techniques have been proposed for improving system performance by dynamically adjusting the CCAT to a more aggressive value than is allowed in static CCAT implementations.
Complexities arise, however, when DSC techniques are employed on top of other techniques to control transmission power, such as the use of transmission power control (TPC) commands from the network.